Getting to Know Todd Williams of CS:GO Team Curse

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Todd Williams is a member of Curse's Counter Strike: Global Offensive(CS:GO) team. He's 25, lives in Beaufort, South Carolina and he's been playing competitive Counter Strike since 2002. I sat down with Todd and discussed his pro-gaming career.

Andrew Hamling(AH): Hello there! Let's start off by asking about your training regiment, how do you train for a competition and am I interrupting it?Todd Williams(TW): Hahahaha!(AH): I take that as a no...(TW): Before Dreamhack this year [Team Curse] were playing together as a team for at least six hours a day to prepare. Individually if I had time I would Deathmatch for an hour a day and/or ESEA(E-Sports Entertainment Association) pug after practice with teammates who still wanted to play.

(AH): We're going to step backwards quite a bit here, but what got you into competitive gaming?(TW): Oh man! I was 11-12ish when I saw my older brother playing Quake 1. I was sucked in instantly and started playing it constantly when I would get home from school. I also played Everquest when it was released on the side, haha! I switched to Quake 2 when it was released and so on. Near the end of middle school a friend introduced me to Team-Fortress and I found out about Counter-Strike on my own.

Todd Williams seen here in the middle with Team Dynamic winning the ESEA-LAN earlier this year. Courtesy ESEA.

(AH): How did you make it on the Curse CS:GO team?(TW): I played for Dynamic in Counter Strike: Source(CS:S) for 2 years and they won ESEA-LAN 8 times. I was with them for 4 of the wins. I played against them online in CS:GO before PAX ESWC(Electronic Sports World Cup) qualifiers where I met them. I got replaced on Dynamic and was looking for a team so I shot them a message. It wasn't until after they got picked up by Curse they contacted me.

(AH): I'm sure you'll see where I'm going with this, but how'd you start with Dynamic?(TW): It all started with Dynamic once I got back from a year break after the CGS(Championship Gaming Series) died. I came back and was asked to play by Warmach1ne and Mustang for some tournament called Lanchamp. I just got back and we made finals of the LAN against Dynamic and actually beat them on one map just coming back when they were the #1 undefeated team. I felt like I had solid footing in the game still so I searched for an ESEA team since I never attended it before. I found friends on Check-Six and attended the ESEA-LAN for them. We got second behind Dynamic and I played really amazing at the tournament and that's how they approached me at the tournament when Steel said he was going to quit for them.

Todd Williams seen on the far left with Team Curse at this year's Dreamhack competition.

(AH): What's your go to gun in CS:GO?(TW): The AK-47 because my role on Curse is to entry frag and be an aggressive rifler and I also recently started calling strategies since we got home from Dreamhack.(AH): Why the AK-47?(TW): Because if you shoot the head in the game it's a 1 shot kill. I have really good aim so it's easy, haha! The M4A1 on the Counter-Terrorist side takes 2 shots in the head to kill someone.(AH): That's a big difference!(TW): I sometimes hate the M4A1 for that reason. You dink someone, which is the sound it makes when you shoot someone once in the head, and you just get one shot by a terrorist rushing you.

(AH): When you first picked up CS:GO, was it easy to jump right into?(TW): It was pretty easy for me. Most of the game was very similar to CS:S, I just had to adjust a few things like getting used to the new recoil patterns that constantly changed with updates and the grenade placements which also got changed. But the learning curve was easier on my end.

Todd Williams in an amazing round while he was preparing for Dreamhack this year. Courtesy ESEA.

(AH): What peripherals do you use for competitive play?(TW): I use all Razer stuff pretty much from the Dynamic sponsorship when I was on the team. Razer Blackwidow Ultimate keyboard, Razer Deathadder Black Edition mouse, Razer Goliathus Control mousepad and Plantronics Gamecom 780's are my headset.

(AH): When's your next competition?(TW): Our next competition should be the ESEA-LAN finals. It's going to be amazing this season with a 50k prize pot and the top 4 European teams coming over to play against us which never happened before. We have to place top 4 in the regular season though first to attend! It should be sometime in 2-3 months.